Not The TV Book Group

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a book group where you could talk about a book with people all over the world for a whole day? Well odd you should all be thinking that as it seems there now is and I am taking part in my other more bookish guise as Savidge Reads. It is a venture that I am really, really, really excited about.

I openly admit that I was really pretty darn angry about last weeks TV Book Club it was in the main because of the lack of time given to a book people had spent money and time on. I have nothing against the show as we need all the book shows we can get on TV, I just didn’t think the public were rewarded for their time effort and pounds. Nor do I have anything against Amanda Ross, I don’t know her, I am just a bit jealous of her job ha! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to choose the British publics reading for pounds?

Well until the everso unlikely event of that ever happening I am taking part in The Not The TV Book Group along side Lynne of Dovegreyreader, Kim of Reading Matters and Kirsty of Other Stories. We aren’t trying to ‘take on’ The TV Book Club or to mock it (the title is based in homage to the Not The Booker that the Guardian started), just do something different. We haven’t told any publishers or authors we might know before hand, in fact if they know it will be through out blogs so no favoritism or any marketing is part of this, its just for the passion of reading, its been harder than we all thought too.

As I write this we have just spent a good three hours whittling down a shortlist of eight books from 16. We each spent hours (and I mean hours) toiling over 4 choices to then be whittled down by the group of us as a whole. We had certain criteria we had to match for the intial four alone…

Nothing we have read, reviewed or written about before.

It must be available in paperback in the UK at the moment.

It must have been published within the last five years.

So what is the 16 date schedule, we thought a book a fortnight was more realistic than one a week and we would all like to read other books too, and what are the books… you will have to keep popping by our blogs today to find out, I would suggest early evening maybe. I am a big book tease aren’t I?